The Interfaith Center Staff
The Interfaith Center staff is made up of two professional full-time staff and a team of student staff. The staff works as a team to create, plan, and implement programming
and events around the Interfaith Center's Mission, Vision and Values.
Interfaith Center Director: Tarah Trueblood, JD, MDiv, MA
Professional Experience
Tarah Trueblood directs the Interfaith Center's overall mission to engage the UNF campus around religious pluralism and provide distinctive programs for students to voice values, engage with others, act together, and lead others to do likewise. She has responsibility over strategic planning, staff recruitment and management, student program development and assessment, budgeting, fundraising, community outreach, and day-to-day operations of the center.
Prior to her position at UNF, Trueblood served as the Executive Director of Wesley Foundation at the University of California, Berkeley where she led the development, financing, entitlement, construction and initial lease-up of a four-story student residential housing community and community center known as Wesley House Berkeley. She also collaborated with the Dean of Students and other University and community leaders to form the University’s first interfaith coalition and first student interfaith leadership development program.
Trueblood was an ordained Elder with the United Methodist Church and served as the lead pastor and multi-cultural community life director of three California congregations. She helped guide these congregations to become mission-driven and community service oriented. Trueblood was admitted to the California State Bar Association and practiced corporate finance, and securities law in Sacramento, California serving several terms as President of the Sacramento County Bar Association's Business Law Section.
Education and Scholarship
Juris Doctor: University of Nebraska, College of Law (Lincoln, NE)
Master of Divinity: Graduate Theological Union (GTU) (Berkeley, CA)
Master of Arts: GTU (Thesis: Experiential Learning to Drive Sustainable Social Change)
Community Scholar: University of North Florida, Center for Community Based Learning
Interfaith Center Coordinator: Rachael McNeal, MDiv
Rachael McNeal, a native of Columbus, Ohio is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary where she received her Master of Divinity. Rachael is also a graduate of Flagler College where she studied Religion/Philosophy and Youth Ministry. Rachael is an alum of the Interfaith Youth Core after completing a seminary course on Youth and interfaith Leadership with Eboo Patel, Cassie Meyer and Kenda Dean. She has written for the Interfaith Youth Core's blog (www.ifyc.org/stay-informed) and is on IFYC's alumni speakers bureau. Rachael taught Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in the Fall of 2012 at Flagler College. Rachael has been passionate about building peace between people of different religious and non-religious identities since her time as an undergraduate. In January of 2012 she participated in an Interfaith Trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories where she participated in Interfaith Dialogue. The trip inspired the article she co-wrote with Rori Picker Neiss entitled "Jesus, Judaism, and Seeing the Other" which appeared in the Hannukah Issue of the Jewish Post (http://www.jewishpost.com/news/jesus-judaism-and-seeing-the-other.html). She is particularly inspired by the theology of Jacques Dupuis, Thomas Merton and Amos Yong and their understandings about the importance of interreligious dialogue. Rachael joined the Interfaith Center staff in September of 2012. She lives in St. Augustine, FL with her husband, Kevin,daughter Esther, and dog Chief Clancy Wiggum.
